


Survival

by missbecky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Captivity, Darkfic, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 17:49:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbecky/pseuds/missbecky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Usually it's just an academic question: how far would you go to survive in hell? Two years as a prisoner in Jotunheim, and Tony Stark knows exactly what it takes to stay alive. Even if it costs him his humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival

**Author's Note:**

> This story is unrelentingly dark and horrible, and I'm so, so sorry. I never intended to publish it. You can thank/blame [Kiyaar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/pseuds/Kiyaar) and [SakuraTsukikage](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SakuraTsukikage/pseuds/SakuraTsukikage) for urging me to do so.

They're sitting by the swimming pool today. It's one of those clichéd California days: brilliant blue sky, not a cloud in sight, nothing but warm sunshine. It's maybe a little too warm for May, actually; Steve's thinking about getting in the pool later.

He sets his latest drawing aside with a loud rustling of paper. He clears his throat. From the corner of his eye he sees Tony's head turn sharply and he feels the weight of Tony's stare.

He looks up and smiles. "Hey," he says. "I just wanted to say, you know, um, happy birthday."

Tony just stares at him, expressionless. He doesn't care about things like birthdays anymore, and really, Steve knows that, but he wanted to try anyway. Occasionally Tony surprises him and shows an interest in something, and so he never lets such an opportunity go by.

Not this time, though, but that's okay. He expected this. "So yeah," he says. "Happy birthday." He smiles again and then turns his attention back to his drawing. He's always the first to look away.

Tony continues to stare at him for a while, assessing him for deception, waiting for him to pursue the subject. After a while he decides Steve is done, and he looks away again.

Steve focuses on his drawing and tries not to be disappointed. He knew it was a long shot when he brought it up. And there's some debate over how old Tony is now, anyway. Time moves differently in Jotunheim. By that calendar he was gone over two years, but here on Earth it was slightly less than six months. No one has quite figured out how to reconcile that discrepancy yet.

****

Not too many people come to the house. The SHIELD psychiatrist comes every Wednesday to see both of them – separate appointments, of course. Thursday brings the deliveryman from the supermarket. Happy stops by from time to time to supervise the staff who clean the house and keep the grounds maintained, and to say hi, but he's obviously uncomfortable in Tony's presence now, and he never stays very long.

Rhodey comes every so often, usually on short notice. After his first disastrous visit, he's always dressed in civilian clothing, with nothing to remind them that he is a soldier, a man trained to kill. He's good with Tony, knowing instinctively how to behave and what he can and cannot say. It's a relief to share the burden, and Steve always breathes a little easier when he is here.

Pepper does not visit. She tried, really she did, but even Tony could tell how much it hurt her to see what he's become. In one of his rare rational decisions since his return, he ordered her to New York and told her to stay there. Even though Tony is no longer in control of Stark Industries – and most likely never will be again – Pepper obeyed that command as if nothing had ever changed between them. She calls from time to time, though. Tony is surprisingly normal on the phone, able to converse just fine when there isn't any face-to-face interaction to ruin things, and Steve is grateful to her for keeping up the pretense that they can still talk together just like old times.

And that leaves himself. Steve Rogers, formerly Captain America. He is the only other person who lives in that big, glass house on the clifftop. As part of the conditions for his stay, he abides by some very simple rules. They are easy to remember, but hard to put into practice. No loud noises. No sudden moves. No prolonged eye contact. No getting too close. No touching. And never, ever appear threatening. He hunches his shoulders a lot now, so he doesn't seem so tall. And he always puts his fork down when he talks at dinner, so the hand gestures he can't seem to stop don't come across in the wrong way.

A lot of the rules are just common sense. Others he's had to learn the hard way. Every week he writes up a progress report and gives it to the SHIELD therapist. He never mentions the times Tony attacks him, or the injuries he has sustained. He figures she knows it all, anyway.

****

Steve's here now because he blames himself for what happened. He probably always will. Well, that's not entirely true. He's here because he wants to be here. But this is also his penance. He was the leader of the Avengers, and though they all discussed it, he was the one who made the ultimate decision. He was the one who insisted they accompany Thor to Asgard, and from there to Jotunheim, even though he knew the realms were torn apart at the time by war. Stupidly, he thought they might be able to help.

Instead they found themselves surrounded by frost giants, vastly outnumbered and overpowered. When the battlefield finally cleared, Natasha was missing an eye and Tony was simply missing.

Odin would not let them go out and search. He banished the Midgardians back to Earth. Consumed by guilt and anguish, Thor led a group of his own people in search-and-rescue teams, but no one ever found anything. Not until two years had passed in Jotunheim, and six months on Earth, and by then everyone had pretty much accepted that Tony was dead and never coming back.

There are days when Steve wishes it had been that simple.

****

The next day they sit by the pool again. He knows why Tony likes it out here. The sky is blue and there is a gentle breeze. It's warm and sunny and all the things he didn't have in Jotunheim. It was Steve's idea to come to California, and it's proved to be one of his better ones. Staying in New York with the cold and the gray skies and the overwhelming population wasn't doing Tony any good. At least here in California he seems more relaxed.

Steve brought a book outside today, but he isn't in the mood for reading. He feels restless and unsettled. What he really wants to do is go down to the gym and punch things until they break. He can't do that now, though. The gym is off-limits when Tony is awake; he shudders to think what would happen if Tony saw him in there, throwing punches and kicks.

It isn't Tony's fault, he reminds himself for the millionth time. Tony can't help what they did to him, what they made him into. He knows if the roles were reversed, if he was the one taken away, he would have done exactly the same thing. Thor has told him that the fighting pits of Jotunheim are legendary for their cruelty and brutality. Even when not in the ring, the fighters are housed together, and at least one dies every night during the inevitable clashes over the meager sources of food and water and safe shelter. That is how it has always been, how it will always be. When survival is at stake, there can be only one response: kill or be killed.

Steve knows this. Still, he wishes he could go work out.

****

Dinner is an excellent fish in some kind of cream sauce, with vegetables and rice. Tony eats the way he always does, leaning protectively over his plate, his eyes fixed on Steve, occasionally glancing to either side to make sure no one is sneaking up on him. It's distressing to watch, but he is actually much better at this now than he was at first. During those early days, no one could even be in the same room as him when he was eating, unless they wanted to be attacked.

When Thor's people first found him, Tony was just coming off another victory in the pits. His captors got drunk in celebration, and the Warriors Three were able to sneak in and rescue him. Much later Steve learned that in fact it was Thor's friends who almost needed the real rescuing that night – Tony came close to killing each one of them before they were able to knock him unconscious and take him away to safety.

It should have been a joyous day when Thor suddenly appeared at the Avengers Tower and told them that Tony had been found, but the god of thunder had looked anything but happy. Steve knew then that things were not all right, but even he hadn't guessed at the truth.

Only Steve went with Thor to Asgard and to Odin's palace, and only Steve saw Tony that first day, chained to the decorative ironwork that marched along the wall of the room where they were holding him. He was more like a wild animal then, spitting curses at them in the frost giants' language and pulling continuously at the chains as he tried to get free. When Steve released him, against Thor's cautioning not to, he broke off one of the iron spikes from the metalwork and stabbed Steve in the side.

It took both of them working together to subdue Tony enough to re-apply the chains. He was very strong, and he was very fast, and twice he nearly got away from them. By the time they were finished, Thor was bleeding from two nasty bites, and Steve had a bloody nose in addition to the wound in his side.

It was the first of many.

****

JARVIS has assured him that Tony sleeps, and fairly well, in fact. Steve is grateful for this; on the occasions when Tony wakes from a nightmare, he is pretty much useless. There is no approaching him then, not even in his usual manner, making extra noise to announce his presence and moving slowly. He knows if he were to show his face on those nights, Tony would try to kill him without hesitation.

Instead Steve suffers the nightmares, remembering those terrible first few days when Tony's eyes burned bright with hatred, when he didn't seem to remember English or even his own name, when anyone who got near him was met with snarling hostility and an attempt on their life.

He dreams about the day he and Thor finally moved Tony out of that room with the metalwork and into a normal bedroom in the palace. Together they carried him and Tony screamed and tried to bite their hands, and when they laid him on the bed they had to tie him down so he couldn't hurt them. As they tied the knots, he flew into a hysterical terror and almost broke his wrists in his desperate struggles to free himself.

It was the first time Steve had been close to Tony since his return. He choked back the tears and had to turn his back. He couldn't stand to look at the rage and fear in Tony's eyes, and the scars on his body. Most of them were centered around the arc reactor, that obvious weakness his enemies in the ring would naturally go for first. Still others adorned his abdomen and his throat, and one crossed his forehead and ended at the corner of his eye, showing how perilously close he had come to being blinded.

Tony screamed until he couldn't anymore, but still he struggled, finding the strength to fight long after he should have surrendered. Steve worried what all this was doing to his heart. He asked Thor to leave, and then they were alone. He sat on the edge of the bed, and Tony arched up against the ropes and cried in terror _No_ and _no_ and _no_ and Steve wept to imagine what the frost giants did to him before they decided to throw him into the pits.

Not knowing what else to do, Steve talked to him, trying to calm him, saying his name over and over. And finally Tony fell still and stared at him with blazing hatred and spat, "I'm not falling for this, so stop it, _stop it!_ " Steve could only stare at him, frozen with the horror of realizing that Tony had known all along where he was and who was with him – he just wouldn't let himself believe it, thanks to the frost giants and their powers of magic and illusion.

He always wakes up then, his face wet with tears and the pain in his chest threatening to overwhelm him.

There are other nightmares, but that one is the most common. To this day he can't be sure how often Tony reverts to that old belief, thinking everything around him is a lie, and everyone is an enemy who must be killed swiftly before they kill him. Some days, particularly when he's nursing a new black eye or hiding the bruises beneath a long-sleeve shirt, he wonders how long it will be before Tony truly tries to kill him.

**** 

After returning from Jotunheim, Tony killed three SHIELD agents with nothing but his bare hands before they could stop him. Steve is pretty sure he only knows about one of those deaths, though – the other two died from their injuries after they had been removed from the scene. 

There was no doubt that Tony could not stay in New York, and it was abundantly clear that he could never be Iron Man or an Avenger again. It was only a combination of Steve's influence, Pepper's scheming, and Tony's money that kept him out of the SHIELD-run institution for people like him. The clinically depressed. The ones too badly wounded to function normally. The insane.

Steve did what he had to do. This was his fault, and that made Tony his responsibility. He resigned his commission and turned in his shield. He promised Director Fury that he would stay by Tony's side for as long as it took. He remained in New York long enough to coach Bucky on how to be the best Captain America he could be, then he stepped on board the Stark Industries plane that took him and Tony – heavily sedated and sleeping – to California.

Some days he regrets it. Most days, he simply accepts it.

****

They're sitting on the upper balcony today. Shadows creep across the concrete as the sun moves through the sky. He rustles the pages of his magazine and waits for Tony to look at him first, then he looks up. "Can I ask you a question?"

Tony stares at him, gauging his threat level. It's part of who he is now, that swift sizing up of everyone he sees, immediately assessing their strengths and weaknesses, then determining the best mode of attack. The frost giants made him into a killer, and nothing Steve ever says or does is going to change that. But, "Sure," he says, and his voice is perfectly even, betraying no hint of emotion.

"Why don't you ever go down into the workshop?" Steve asks.

Tony doesn't even blink. "Why would I do that?" he asks. "Do you really want me having access to lasers and power tools? I'd take your head off the first time you walked through those doors and we both know it."

That's the saddest part about all of this. Tony knows, he _knows_ , how messed up he is. He's just powerless to do anything about it. All those years of fixing robots and cars and machines and even his own damaged heart, and he's finally encountered the one thing he can't fix.

"I just thought…" Steve swallows hard. "I thought maybe, if you did, it might make you feel better. You know, inventing stuff again. The way you used to."

"Creating instead of destroying," Tony offers. Against his new suntan, the scar over his eye is very white. "That's what you mean."

Steve nods a little. His mouth has gone dry. He sits very still, trying to tense his muscles for what seems inevitable now, without letting it be visible. If Tony sees him going on the defensive, he will attack for certain; he won't be able to help himself.

"No," Tony says. And for once he looks away first.

Steve's heart races. This is new. This is huge. Tony never looks away first. He simply can't. In the pits it meant death to take your eyes off the enemy and let your guard down.

But now… Sudden hope blooms in his chest. If Tony can do this, if he can unlearn even this one thing he so cruelly learned in Jotunheim, maybe there can be others. Maybe someday he really will be all right again.

The moment doesn't last long. After only a few seconds, Tony is staring at him again, barely restrained passion flaring in his eyes. "I can't," he says. "Not anymore."

"Maybe someday?" Steve says hopefully.

Tony doesn't say anything. He doesn't take his eyes off Steve.

****

He wakes up that night to the glow of soft white light bathing his face. His instinctive reaction is to startle and sit up, but he manages to stop himself before he gets more than a couple inches off the bed. Slowly he lies back down.

Tony backs off at his rapid movement, fists rising, but he does not run. He doesn't say a word. He just stands there, looking down at Steve. He's unarmed, but that means nothing, as Steve well knows.

The silence draws out unbearably. Slowly Tony lowers his hands to his sides. Steve wonders if this is the first time Tony has stood over him and watched him sleep, and can't decide if that thought worries him or reassures him. He thinks about saying something, but he doesn't know what he _can_ say.

"I just want you to know," Tony says. He's bare-chested, the arc reactor illuminating both his scars and the way he is trembling. "I am trying. I really am."

Steve can practically hear the sound his heart makes as it shatters into tiny pieces. He blinks rapidly to hold back the tears. "I know you are," he whispers hoarsely.

"Good," Tony says. He backs away slowly, still watching Steve. When he reaches the doorway, he takes a deep breath and turns around. For a moment he stands there, every line of his body taut with tension, his hands balled into fists, waiting for the attack from the rear that he can't see.

Still lying in bed, Steve just stares, awed by the sheer courage it takes for Tony to do even this simple thing, trusting him enough to present his back to him. Yesterday he would not have thought this was even possible.

Today, suddenly all things are possible.

Eventually, with an audible exhale, Tony relaxes. He walks off, down the hall and out of sight.

Steve closes his eyes and lets the tears fall.

****

The next day they sit by the pool, in the sunshine.

 

***************

***************

 

It's all about survival, Tony would say. If anyone ever asked him.

They don't ask. It's just as well. They wouldn't really want to hear his answer anyway.

Steve, though. He thinks Steve might know a little bit about survival. How sometimes it takes the form of building a giant metal suit of armor in a cave. How other times it's all about digging out eyeballs with your thumbs and stabbing your enemy in the heart with a dagger that's nothing but a rock you sharpened with your fingernails at night, hiding it possessively against your stomach so no one else even knew you had it.

Yeah. Steve might understand that. 

****

Most days they sit by the pool. The California sun is warm on his skin. Water laps gently at the sides of the pool. There is just enough of a breeze to keep it from being too warm.

Tony sits there and tries to forget the cold, the dark, the smells of blood and shit and death.

He doesn't like it when Steve talks to him on these occasions. He would much rather sit in silence. He never forgets that Steve is there, and he is always very aware of where Steve is relation to himself and what Steve is doing, what direction he is facing, what he holds in his hands – but sometimes he can let himself think that those things don't matter so much. Partly they don't matter because Steve isn't an enemy to be vanquished. Mostly they don't matter because he knows beyond a doubt that even if Steve should suddenly take up his pencil and come at him, he would be able to kill Steve first. (But this is the kind of thing he isn't supposed to think anymore, so he does his best to forget that he ever thought it, even though it's always there in his mind.)

Despite his wish for silence, which to be fair he has never expressed out loud so it's not like he can hold it against Steve, some days Steve tries to talk to him like nothing's happened and nothing's changed.

Like today. Steve rustles his drawing paper loudly and clears his throat, and Tony turns toward him, looking him over and judging in a heartbeat that this is not the opening move of an attack but just another one of Steve's fumblingly earnest attempts at conversation.

It doesn't make him any more relaxed when Steve wishes him a happy birthday.

In a way it's almost funny. Someone, he forgets who, let slip once that he was in Jotunheim for over two years, but on Earth it wasn't quite six months. He did the math immediately, figured out the ratio for the time difference. (It's 3.75). Most of his fights in the ring lasted no more than five minutes – anything longer than that and he ran the real risk of being the one left dead on the frozen ground. Five minutes. On Earth, that's one minute and thirty-three seconds.

In the time it takes to heat up a meal in the microwave, he fought and killed a man. He's pretty sure there's irony lurking somewhere in there.

But he still can't make the math work. How old is he now exactly? It doesn't feel like six months passed, but it doesn't feel like two years, either.

It feels more like fifty.

****

They're outside again, on the balcony today for a change of scenery. He doesn't get much warning, just a rustle of a magazine, and then Steve is saying, "Can I ask you a question?"

Even now, after everything, he finds it strangely hard to deny Steve anything. There was a time, Before, when he would have given Steve the world without a moment's hesitation. The world and everything in it, including himself. Mind, body, and soul. He would have done it easily, without regret.

Everything's changed now, though. His mind is too broken to be of any use to anyone, even himself. Even the thought of letting anyone touch his body makes his skin crawl and sends a surge of adrenaline coursing through him, preparatory to making that killing blow. And his soul is so corrupt and dark it isn't even worth thinking about anymore.

But Steve hasn't changed. He's still the same man, righteous and generous and noble and pure, and Tony remembers those days when he would have given Steve the whole world. He remembers, and when he bothers to think about it he supposes that's why he still finds himself wanting to give to Steve.

So he says, "Sure," and it comes out sounding even and normal, revealing nothing of his thoughts.

"Why don't you ever go down into the workshop?" Steve asks.

It's disappointing, how long it took Steve to ask this question. He's been ready for it for weeks. That, and a host of other questions Steve never asks – but maybe he will, now that the door has been opened. That's okay. He's ready for them. He's always ready.

"Why would I do that?" he says. "Do you really want me having access to lasers and power tools? I'd take your head off the first time you walked through those doors and we both know it."

Now it's Steve's turn to look disappointed, and honestly, if he hadn't figured that one out on his own long before this, there isn't much Tony can do for him. Their first day in this house, he commanded JARVIS to lock the workshop against him and not to open it up again for any reason whatsoever. He's rather proud of that move, actually. Back then it was pretty rare for him to be coherent enough to make such a decision and implement it.

Then again, he might be broken, but he isn't stupid. He's still a genius, thank you very much. He knows perfectly well how screwed up he is now. Even the thought of what would happen should he get his hands on the tools in the workshop sends a chill through his blood that has nothing to do with the lingering cold of Jotunheim.

"I just thought…" Steve swallows hard. "I thought maybe, if you did, it might make you feel better. You know, inventing stuff again. The way you used to."

"Creating instead of destroying," Tony offers. "That's what you mean." The therapist from SHIELD suggested this same thing months ago. She knew better than to ask about the workshop though; she just asked if he ever worked on his tablet anymore. As if a thin scrap of plastic couldn't be turned into a weapon as easily as a welding torch and a sledgehammer.

Steve nods, hope written all over his face.

It's too much. That hope. He can't do it. He can't bear it. And before it can really register in his brain what he's doing, he looks away.

The instant Steve leaves his vision he realizes his mistake. It's death to take your eyes off the enemy. His heart races, his muscles clench, his entire body tenses up. He has to look, he has to see, he has to _know._ If he doesn't know what's coming, he can't get ready for it. It's like that time they wanted a little more sport than usual and they did something to his eyes so he couldn't see, and he went stumbling and blind into the ring, trying to find the enemy by hearing and scent alone. And it hadn't mattered that they did it to the other man too. All he knew then was the utter terror of not knowing what was out there, and not being able to prepare for it and react accordingly.

He looks back at Steve, and the look on Steve's face makes something twist deep inside him, worse than a physical stabbing (and he would know). Steve is looking at him with something like awe and amazement right now, but there's still that ridiculous hope in his eyes, and it's like being beneath the pits again when they brought in a new fighter, someone who still clung to the hope that things were not as bad as they seemed. It's just the same, that need to immediately crush out all hope and enforce reality.

"I can't," he says. "Not anymore."

Steve does not take rejection lightly. He never has. He's a fighter. He would have survived a long time in the pits. A long time, but not forever. Not as long as Tony did. He doesn't quite have what it takes. "Maybe someday?"

And he just can't answer that.

****

For a long time after they moved out here, it was strangely liberating to accept that he was broken beyond repair, to just go with it, letting the days carry him forward aimlessly, toward an end he couldn't see and frankly didn't care about. It freed him from any sense of responsibility. He ensured everyone's safety by denying himself the workshop, he sent Pepper to New York, he agreed to let Steve throw away his life in baby-sitting him – and then he was pretty much done.

Lately, though, it's been harder to maintain that mindset. Numbers and equations flash through his head with increasing frequency. He's pretty sure he killed a few SHIELD agents back in New York, and he doesn't – can't – feel guilty about that, but he does know that he _should._ And now Steve's question, and that awful hope in Steve's eyes. 

Before, he used to lie all the time, about how he was feeling and what he was doing and how much he loved following in his father's footsteps and ruling the weapons industry and saving the world and all that bullshit. He's still a liar, but he's much better at it now. The deceptive feint in one direction, a split second before lunging the opposite way. The feigned pain of injury, only to straighten up and deliver the death blow when the enemy comes closer.

The only thing he can't do anymore, it seems, is lie to himself.

And here's the truth: he doesn't want to be broken anymore. He doesn't want Steve to look at him that way, with so much hope in those blue eyes.

He wants to let the equations turn tricks in his mind's eye and resolve themselves into what they really are – some wonderful new invention only he could ever have thought of, because he is a genius, he is still Tony Stark, they didn't take that from him, goddamn them. He wants to fly again, high above the earth, safe and protected behind the armor, all the world spread out below him, his for the taking, only he won't take it, of course he won't, that's not who he is and it never will be, he simply appreciates it for what it is. He wants to look at Steve and see not a potential threat but his old friend, the Steve whom he would have given the world and everything in it, including himself. He wants to be able to sit beside the pool and not have to keep part of his attention focused on Steve and what he is doing and what direction he is facing and what he is holding in his hands, and just _sit by the pool._

He wants to be able to rest. He's so tired. He wants to rest. Just for five minutes, maybe (one minute and thirty-three seconds). 

That's all he asks. Just for five minutes, he'd like to be normal again.

****

He dreams of the ring, standing over his latest kill, spattered with blood (some of it his own) and brains (and who knows, maybe some of those are his, too). His captors (owners) come for him and he turns on them, trying to kill them, too, because why not? He might as well. Even if he succeeds (and he has, at least once that he knows of) there's plenty more of them where they came from. And they won't punish him too harshly, he learned that lesson early on, because they need him to be able to fight tomorrow. He makes them a lot of money, and he's famous in a way – some things never change, it seems, no matter what realm he's living in.

So he does his best, kicking and biting and stabbing at them and he actually does drop one of them, and then the other clubs him across the back of the neck and he goes sprawling on the frozen earth. He's only down for a second – anything longer than that means death – but they hit him again and something cracks in his arm and now he's really pissed because it's going to be that much harder to kill tomorrow, thanks a lot _fuckers_ , and they hit him again and he suddenly worries that maybe this time they are really going to hurt him, they are going to seriously fuck him up, and they hit him again and it _hurts_ and he can't help crying out with the pain –

\-- and he wakes up.

He sleeps with the lights on, and he's not one bit ashamed to admit that, there will be no shadows in here, where anything or anyone could be lurking. It takes a single second to search the room and ensure that no one is there; he is just as alone as when he went to bed a couple hours ago.

"Status report," he says, damning himself for the way his voice shakes.

JARVIS responds immediately, giving him the information requested. Time and temperature. (2:42 a.m., 52 degrees.) Steve's whereabouts (sleeping in his room.) Security system engaged (as it damn well should be.)

He lays back, one arm over his eyes. His heart rate and respiration are slow to return to normal. With his other hand he reaches up and touches the rim of the arc reactor. They all went for it in the ring; he has the scars to prove it. In a way it was his salvation. They were so focused on that strange glowing light in his chest that he was able to divert their attention, pretend he was doing some arcane magic with it – this was Jotunheim, after all, where magic was as common as science. Many times he was able to get within killing range that way, and by the time they realized the mistake they had made by focusing on the arc reactor and not his hands, it was too late for them...

Furiously he sits up, dropping his hand to his side. He hates it when he does that, gets lost inside a memory like that. It's bad enough that he remembers at all. He doesn't have to _wallow_ in it.

"Status report," he demands again. And nothing has changed but the time (2:46 a.m. now), but he knows he won't get back to sleep any time soon.

He gets up and leaves the bedroom. He walks down the hall. At the closed door, three doors down from his own, he stops.

Does he really want to do this?

Fuck it, he does.

He opens the door and steps inside. This room is completely dark except for the faint green glow emanating from the clock on the nightstand. The darkness puts him on edge. He stands perfectly still, breathing shallowly through slightly parted lips, all the better to remain soundless and hear what is around him.

All he hears is the sound of Steve's deep breathing.

He eases forward silently, and stops beside the bed. He doesn't know why he came in here or what he's planning to do now that he _is_ here.

The light from the arc reactor bathes the scene before him. Steve lies on his left side, arm beneath the pillow, right knee drawn up. His hair is corkscrewed wildly, his mouth slack with sleep. Looking at him like this is much better than this afternoon. At least when he's asleep there is no stupid hope in his eyes.

And what's the point? Why did he come in here? Oh, he knows now. He can feel it rising up through his very bones. He doesn't understand where it came from or why it should suddenly be happening after months of free-floating nothing, but it's here now, damnit, and he has to acknowledge it, because if spending two years as a fighter in the pits of Jotunheim has taught him anything (and oh, the lessons from that brutal schoolyard just never end), it's that if you don't acknowledge what's going on around you and inside you, you're going to wind up dead.

Steve shifts in his sleep, his eyes squinting up a little, one hand opening and closing. The light from the arc reactor is going to wake him up, but Tony doesn't care. He's almost clinically interested in what Steve's reaction is going to be – and his own. This just might be the end, he thinks.

Steve's eyes open and he starts to spring upright. Immediately the urge to stop him, to _put him down_ , sweeps over Tony. His hands clench into fists and all his weight comes up and forward, onto the balls of his feet. He leans in – and then he stops.

Because he can't. This is Steve. Not an enemy. Not someone who has every intention of killing him. This is _Steve._

Hastily he backpedals away from the bed.

Steve watches him, sleep banished by wary surprise. Slowly he lowers himself back down onto the mattress.

The ensuing silence is very loud, between the pounding of Tony's heart and the insistent clamoring in the back of his mind to finish it, finish it, _finish it._ Steve lies very still, like the prey he is, trying not to provoke him. In the past he's attacked Steve, although he's always managed to make himself stop before delivering the fatal blow. It never seemed to matter before. Now, with this new and terrible thing racing through his veins, it is imperative that he master himself.

It takes an effort, but he uncurls his fists. He lowers his arms to his sides. He just stands there, _not_ a hairs-breadth away from killing, _not_ trembling all over.

That thing inside him demands that he speak it. And that's okay. Steve needs to hear this. "I just want you to know," he says. "I am trying. I really am."

Trying to be normal. Trying to pick up the shattered fragments that are all that is left of himself. Trying to make them fit together again. Trying to see where this all ends.

Tears fill Steve's eyes. "I know," he whispers.

That's unexpected, because how could Steve know when he just figured it out himself, but he says, "Good." Because it _is_ good. Now Steve knows, and that thing inside him, that terrible need to be unbroken, to be normal again, has been stated out loud. It's out there now, and he's committed to it, and it's an amazing rush to suddenly have a goal again, to have something to work toward.

He backs away, and it hits him that maybe it's been this simple all along, and he was just too stupid to realize it. Brilliant genius _stupid_ Tony Stark, still stuck in Jotunheim even after all these months. And that's not fair, it really isn't, because he's already left part of himself in that cave in Afghanistan, and now he's lost too much to the frost giants, but still, he thinks maybe he can make something out of what's left. Because he _is_ a brilliant genius (fuck you all), and if anyone can do this, he can. 

And just to prove that he can still do the impossible, he stops in the doorway and he deliberately turns his back on Steve.

Immediately all his new killer's instincts rise up in protest (can't see, can't know, can't get ready, _turn around!_ ). He's powerless to stop his body from taking over at first, going rigid with tension, fists curling and rising. But he _can_ keep it from going any further. He can, and he will. He is going to take control again. He's done it once before, in those dark days in the cave, learning to live with a giant hole in his chest. This is easy, compared to that.

He can do this.

He stands there, quivering with tension and fear and the fierce determination to take his life back. And nothing happens. There is no attack from behind. No one tries to kill him. There is not even a single sound. Only the knowledge that Steve is there, at his back (the way it was Before, when he wanted to give Steve the world and everything in it, including himself.)

Savage triumph races through him. In the ring he would be shouting it aloud now, glorying in his victory. But this is not Jotunheim. It's just California.

It's a victory, nonetheless. Oh hell yeah.

He lets out a long, slow breath. His hands drop. His head comes up.

He walks away.

****

The next day they sit by the pool, in the sunshine.

 

***************


End file.
